FROM EDDIE HASKELL TO THE LAPD

Remember Eddie Haskell of ''Leave it to Beaver''? He was played by Ken Osmond on the series, which ran from 1957 to 1963 and became a cult hit later in syndication.

After the original series went off the air, all sorts of rumors were hatched concerning the fate of the various cast members. One that lasted for years insisted that Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, was killed in Vietnam, and another had Ken Osmond growing up and doing porno movies. Not

surprisingly, neither rumor was true.

Mathers went on to do occasional TV roles. Both he and Osmond, plus many of the other members of the original cast, starred in the revised series ''The New Leave It to Beaver'' on the Disney Channel in 1985-86 and the retitled

In 1980, he was involved in a shootout in which he was saved from death by his bullet-proof vest. A second shooting occurred 30 days later and resulted in his taking time off to deal with the trauma of the shootings. He returned to duty a couple of times before deciding to leave the force for good.

The first incident, in which Osmond and his partner, Henry Lane, chased a guy in a stolen taxi, is dramatized in a special edition of ''Top Cops''

titled ''Hollywood Cops,'' airing at 7 p.m. Thursday on CBS-Ch. 2. During the chase, Osmond was shot three times, two bullets were stopped by his bullet-proof vest, the third one by his belt buckle.

In the dramatized segment of ''Top Cops,'' viewers will see that after Osmond was shot, the culprit was approaching him, ready to finish him off, when Lane lunged at the would-be killer, knocking him down and subduing him. Osmond and the culprit rode to the hospital in the same ambulance.

Osmond noted in a telephone interview that becoming a cop was something he had thought about ever since he was a kid. He really didn`t have much of a say in the choice of his career because he had a typical stage (or movie)

mother who took him on auditions every day after school.

Osmond said he has no bitterness about that because he enjoyed acting and was lucky enough to start working while he was quite young.

''Everyone knows an Eddie Haskell,'' Osmond said. ''He`s the guy who you can blame things on when they go wrong. The ironic thing about `Beaver` is that it was never a top 10 show during the original network run. It was just another family show that had enough fans to keep it on the air.

''As for my fan mail, it didn`t translate into any specific demographics. I got letters from kindergarten kids to folks in convalescent homes.''

After the show achieved cult status in the syndicated reruns, Osmond reaped some of the benefits and is still reaping them: He makes personal appearances at the opening of supermarkets and gives lectures about his experiences both as an actor and as a police officer.

Osmond is proud of both of his careers and keeps in touch with Mathers from his ''Beaver'' days, and with Lane, who saved his life.